Afternoon naps aid children’s learning
午睡幫助孩子學習

A vendor selling watermelons naps as he waits for customers at a market in Taiyuan, in China’s Shanxi Province on July 17.一位小販七月十七日在中國山西省太原市一處市場等待顧客上門時，小歇片刻。

Photo: Reuters照片：路透

Getting young children to take an hour-long nap after lunch could help them with their learning by boosting brain power, a small study suggests.

A nap appeared to help three-to-five-year-olds better remember pre-school lessons, US researchers said.

University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers studied 40 youngsters and reported their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The benefit persisted in the afternoon after a nap and into the next day.

The study authors say their results suggest naps are critical for memory consolidation and early learning. When the children were allowed a siesta after lunch they performed significantly better on a visual-spatial tasks in the afternoon and the next day than when they were denied a midday snooze.